1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the training of sports players to properly catch a game ball. More specifically, the invention measures and records the impact force, deceleration, or action time as the ball is attempted to be caught in the hands of a player. The device may be used to train players to minimize the impact force and to increase the impact time of the ball with the player's hands, thus increasing the likelihood that the player will successfully learn desirable techniques of catching the ball.
2. Background
Players in American football must use their hands properly in order to consistently catch a football that approaches them through the air. Two keys to being able to successfully catch the ball are a player's ability to maintain focus on the ball as it approaches the player's hands and the ability of the hands to reduce the momentum of the ball to zero with respect to the hands through a carefully controlled gripping motion of the hands on the surface of the ball. Both of these keys to proper catching require repetitive practice and training.
As a player catches a football, the player must use a catching technique such that the player's body absorbs the both the linear momentum and angular momentum of the ball through the player's hands. As such, the action of catching a football is an application of a perfectly inelastic collision between two bodies (the ball and player) in classical physics. The football travels along a ballistic path as a player maneuvers to intercept the trajectory of the ball, ultimately catching the ball and bringing it to rest with respect to the velocity of the player. This part of catching of a football, an oblong, rotating mass with diameter larger than the players hands, is difficult to teach and requires effective practice and training in order to master the technique and develop “soft hands”, a term used to describe players that have mastered the technique of absorbing the momentum from a moving football by minimizing the impact force the football imparts on the hands as the football is caught. In general, the larger the impact force experienced by the hands of the player attempting to catch the football, the more likely the ball will bounce away from the hands before a grip on the ball can be established, rendering the catch unsuccessful.